The East and Middle prongs are less notable divisions of the river, with the Middle Prong emerging from the Greenbrier area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and paralleled for most of its remaining length by State Route 416 up to its confluence with the East Fork near U.S. Route 411.

The East Fork is the only division in which the main stem does not emerge from the national park, formed by a series of small streams in the foothills of English Mountain draining large portions of the Camp Hollow, Pearl Valley, Ball Hollow, and Jones Cove valleys and running along State Road 339.

The West Fork is far better known because it drains the major tourist towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

From there the stream continues to flow northward, paralleled by State Route 66, until its confluence with the French Broad River just downstream from Douglas Dam.

Despite its name, it is not a tributary of the nearby Pigeon River, which flows into the French Broad well above Douglas Dam and the resultant reservoir.